apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

jackie - having lived all over the bay area (east bay, sf, peninsula, south bay)... i would also have to recommend palo alto if you're considering a city south of sf. with stanford right there, it's a little more lively than your average suburb. and, like enrique, i think burlingame is another good option.

Me first! Me first! And it's a Cat Friday post!

From one new AT blogger to another:

Congratulations Lisa and Leslie!

So happy you are up and running...enjoy your first day live!

thanks janel! chicago looks great!

Congratulations San Francisco. I've been checking daily. I'm in NY and was at the AT party last night. However..............I'll be relocating (again...my cat should get mileage on her carrier) to somewhere just south of San Francisco. I'm so so very happy AT now has an SF location. Now, my addiction can continue. Best of luck.

In a fit of overwhelming excitement, I hit the wrong default name. Bad habits die hard....so forget JACKSON

thanks jackie, and we're happy to take you back!

Go Lisa & Leslie!

Looking forward to seeing one of my favorite cities online...Congrats from Chicago!

Jackie! The move's truly going to happen?

*whispers* Do San Mateo... do it! do it!

Glad to see the SF site go live finally. Hopefully we'll see some love for those of us stuck in the burbs around the South Bay and other communities.

Hey guys, welcome to the family! DonÂ’t forget that, as the newest recruits, youÂ’ll have to pick up the slack around here. NY needs you to pick up their dry-cleaning, Chicago wants an espresso and we here in LA need you to get started on the lawn. Pronto ;-)

I couldn’t be happier for you guys. Since starting in LA, there is always been such good response to all things “northern”… such beauty and craft and skill in your town. How lucky we all to have you guys blogging it! Best of luck!

-Alec

Now, please get started on the lawn.

Congratulations San Francisco! I've been checking sanfrancisco.apartmenttherapy.com every single day, what a pleasant surprise to see it up today. We bay area folks finally have our own space on AT. Nice.

Two things I'd love to see covered:

1. Plant resources for our weird microclimates.

2. Used/vintage furniture stores. I still mourn the loss of the "old" Busvan that was mostly unclaimed storage. (Yes, 30 years ago. I was an impressionable 10-year-old).

I'll make an effort to get out and about and help with tips on #2, but I am utterly clueless about #1.

Welcome! We are so excited you're here.

Curbed SF

Congratulations! NY is closest to me but I plan on visiting San Francisco later in the summer so I'll be checking obsessively for tips on cool, design-y haunts out west.

I'm so happy you're up and running. Now I can keep up with what I've missed out on since moving back to NYC. Yippeee!!

Congrats. I've been anxiously awaiting this.

wende, (re: your #2 request) do you ever go to urban ore in berkeley? i've found amazing stuff there...

Ali -- I'm ordinarily one of those horrible San Franciscans who avoids leaving the city, but I see Urban Ore's hours are so generously long that I really have no excuse not to check them out. I'm still struggling with how high retail costs and redevelopment have forced cool stuff to the periphery, contra the good ol' days.

Maybe the husband will be in the mood for an East Bay excursion tomorrow, especially if I give him a choice between lunch at Pyramid Brewing (which he likes) or breakfast at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market (which he hates).

Thanks Lisa.

Wende: Yup. Gonna' do it - wish I could do it now. Here it is: NY'r born in SF and lived both coasts several times. Time to get to Cal and stay there! San Mateo? Hmmm. I'll do some research. I'll be renting. Any info appreciated. We'll have to meet when I visit or when I "arrive". So much going on at one time.

I really, really, really, really need to be within 1/2 of water - OCEAN water. Don't do well otherwise.

"*whispers* Do San Mateo... do it! do it!"

Why San Mateo? Tell me, tell me......you are the one in the know....

Wende: Oooooh, silly me, I didn't remember San Mateo was right THERE. Tell me more when you have the time and I'll do my homework.

two things

wende- go, it's soooooo cool (and actually not far from pyramid), and if you want more choices for breakfast in berkeley- thai breakfast at the thai temple on russel and la note for fancy french.

jackie- want to switch? i'm moving to nyc this summer for grad school (but i don't live in san mateo...)

Welcome. I have also been anxiously awaiting the SF site :)

- SOMA resident

Ali:

I would love to switch (wouldn't that be interesting...) but alas, I don't live right in NYC. I live in Westchester County, Hastings-on-Hudson to be precise. Georgeous little Hudson River town and only a 35 minute commute to NYC.

Trust me, you don't want my apartment. The bathroom gives a whole new meaning the word "small".

Good luck in Grad school....and where DO you live?

Wende, regarding your questions about plant life and microclimates ... how familiar are you with the Sunset gardening zones? They're far, far more specific than the USDA ones. (Go here: http://www.sunset.com/sunset/web/Sponsors/Garden/sunsetmonrovia_r1/htmlfiles/zone_map3.html)

Read up on zones 15-17, all of which factor in chilly, marine-influenced winters. And I'm sure you're already familiar with Sloat Gardens, which is just a great resource/nursery: http://www.sloatgardens.com/

Hi Lisa + Leslie!
would you kind enough to share your backgrounds with us?
(and how you became a duo?)
thanks!

Gah! I broke the site. So sorry -- do I just code for regular hyperlinks when posting?

Wende, Long's Drugs on Broadway is a great and cheap place to get plants adjusted to our micro-climates; Ace Hardware's plant store on Grand is also very good. Navelet's although it necessitates a trip through the Caldecott, has always been a great place to go. Since you're planning a trip to the East Bay, Berkeley Horticulture is a place to really have your dreams come true.

BTW, La Note is one of my favorite restaurants. It's NOT haute cuisine, just delicious provincial cookery.

I lived and gardened in SF for more than 15 years. Sloat Garden as the place you were most likely to get someone who know anything about plants. Their stock was good, and well-cared for. You have to be careful buying from drugstores and home centers because they often don't water their plants regularly. Go to a garden center on a hot day mid-afternoon to get a measure of how well-run they are. If the plants look deflated, don't buy there. They might perk up when watered, but they are permanently damaged.

If you are in the fog belt -- Sunset, outer Richmond -- go with Pacific NW and "English" plants. Rhododendrons and azaleas, hardy ferns, princess flower, calla lilies...all the woodland plants. Many succulents look marvelous in that light. Japanese maples do well if you can keep them out of the wind. Inner Richmond, Laurel Heights... you mostly have to be concerned with wind. All of that foggy area is great for nearly anything "japonica." Try Pieris japonica (andromeda), sweet daphne, camellia japonica (and camellia sinensis, which blooms in the fall and avoids the rain-induced fungus that plagues c. japonica).

Go to Strybing Arboretum in GG Park. Take a notepad. They have great plant sales (and I think one is coming up in May).

I gardened in the sunbelt of the Mission and Noe Valley. I could grow anything in the English, Penelope Hobhouse lexicon, but also hot weather plants (even tomatoes). My delphiniums were amazing. Dahlias and roses thrived. Fruit trees, wisteria, astilbes...you name it. Now I live in a place with hot summers, within an hour of SF. Even though I'm so close, I've had to lean more heavily on Salvias and penstemons, and give up on my beloved delphiniums and hybrid lupines.

The Sunset Garden book is a great place to start. It's written for the West Coast. Most gardening books consider Connecticut and England to be the measure of "normal."

Great to see SF get its own "club"!

(I'd love to see a discussion of the new de Young museum here. I was blown away by the inside (and the collection always was great), but the outside of the building looks like a prison with a guard tower to me.)

Wende, if you are returner of borrowed books, I'd gladly lend you my Sunset Gardens book.


I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!

ebrown, I am an incredibly reliable returner of books -- borrowed books have their very own shelf on the purple table in the living room. (And thank you everyone for the gardening ideas...)

Jackie, rather than my rambling now -- I have several long-delayed errands to run on the Peninsula next Tuesday or Wednesday -- so while I'm there, I will pull together some photos and notes on the better small towns (San Mateo, Burlingame, San Carlos, Redwood City, whatever else comes to mind) as a counterweight to the Chamber of Commerce-style hype. I love wandering around places and seek any excuse to do it.

so sorry for the late hello! I'm stuck on the couch on this lovely day, sick. Argh! Nothing frustrates me more than being sick.

Yay for SF-AT!

Jackie. I grew up in San Mateo. If you're a young (or young-at-heart) renter and want to live just south of the city, I'd advise against San Mateo. Though a lovely town to grow up in, it is very much a boring upper-middle class suburb with no real town center. The neighborhoods are primarily comprised of really lovely homes (and even a great Eichler tract just off of the 92 and 280); but I'd bet you'd feel isolated as a renter since the community isnt really geared to the young renter (better suited for a home owner--if you can afford the astronomical real estate prices). If you were leaning towards the Peninsula area, better to consider Burlingame, esp near the charming Broadway Blvd area.

But if you can afford to rent in SF, you should really consider the Potrero Hill area--freeway close, charming neighborhood feel tucked away in the city; but choose your location wisely because the other side of the hill can be bit a bit sketchy; another plus of this neighborhood is that is by far the sunniest part for the city.

yeah, more info on areas outside of SF proper would be wonderful, as most of us (alas!) can't afford to live in the city. I'm living in Millbrae now & trying hard not to feel all depressed & uncool about living in the burbs, & I bet there's a lot of people in the bay area who feel the same way.

As everyone else on here as stated, it is wonderful to have an AT version just for the Bay Area. With our unique challanges, creative tendencies, interests, and resources, we definately need a great resource to turn to for consistent advice.

holy frijoles... a nice looking tulip table for 65 bucks! http://www.craigslist.org/eby/fur/153422759.html

yes, i am sick and bored... the only thing i am capable of doing is online shopping. so dangerous when one has a fever!

Wende: You're a dear. Thank you! Thank you!

Enrique: You bring up good points.
I thank all of you. I spent most of my California time in LA (with a brief stint in Noe Valley) and have family north of SF.

I love all this input. I've done my own research and will continue. Intially I was thinking of the central coast and might still do that. As is true of most of us, I have my own bizarre basket of needs when it comes to a place to live.

I'm so happy San Francisco AT is up and running. I have a feeling Lisa and Leslie will be doing a great job of covering every area of interest.

Welcome AT-SF! I've been checking for this site daily.

hi y'all! yay!
("let's go oakland", too)

sooj,
i wouldn't feel too depresssed being in the burbs.
i've managed to stick it out in SF and Oakland all these years, surprisingly, but am afraid of what might come again (to the city + my peers) as the economy heats up. It can't be as bad this time, i hope not; it's just a bit spooky reading things about rents rising, again, as tech jobs improve, or about the next wave of TIC's.
(i'm suprised the, um, nicely redone--if you admire Calif mission + other hodge podge style imposed on a 50's box--building next door to me in noe valley hasn't gone up in flames set by one of the disgruntled former tenants who went out fighting.)
i don't mean to be a killjoy in here, i just think about the security + freedom from the boom/bust struggle of suburbia.

Woo hoo! Its like Christmas in April! A place to call our own...

ebrown, Was I supposed to email you for something? I feel a nagging in the back of my head.

Also, if there are people still looking for the AT book they have them in the SF Moma bookstore.

We stagger back from East Bay...

Urban Ore is beyond fabulous for historic rehab but turned out to be about 10 years too young for us on the current furniture selection. They're obviously the kind of place that has to be haunted week after week for that once-in-a-lifetime find, though.

Gilman Trading Co. is my new discovery that's more our speed, since the old furniture is 20s and 30s rather than 60s and 70s, and there's a lot of Asian stuff. http://www.gilmantrading.com/

yay for my city by the bay!

wende, i too, am still mourning the loss of busvans. =(

Heather, you were supposed to e-mail me so that I would have your e-mail address. That's all. How was the move?

Welcome AT SF!

I've been checking for this site for a few weeks now. Glad to see it up.

Cheers,